shortly after i loaded sabayon 5.0 amd64 K i wanted to make a few notes so i went to utils>text editor and kwrite loaded. i opened a new file, entered my notes then saved the file to documents. when i wanted to add a few extra notes i loaded kwrite and loaded the file from the recent documents tab in kwrite. all ok there. this happened a few times with more items added each time.then i opened the file and the items i had added in the past few days had gone. i felt sure i had saved the file and, surely, if i hadn't, then i would have been given a warning. i thought that maybe i had saved the latest file to a different location so i loaded filemanager and started to look through all the home directories but the file wasn't there. eventually i went back to my own home/documents directory and the file was there.however ...instead of being shown as a text file it had the recycle symbol against it. and here was two of them! one had three tilda's after the filename, the other only two. then i noticed a text file too (without any tilda's).the text file was dated the oldest and contained about what i would have expected it to on that date.the one with the most tilda's was the newest but when i clicked it there was no associated program. permissions showed that the files with tilda's were backup files. seemed strange, i would have thought that if you update a text file and backups are switch on then surely the text file stays the latest version and the older version of the text file becomes the backup. i've set kwrite as the default for backup files but there doesn't seem to be any options in to not create the backup files. most of all, i've not a clue how to force it to stay as a simple text file.

Marvin wrote:but there doesn't seem to be any options in to not create the backup files.

As far as I know kwrite automatically creates a backup file when you edit a file (has for me) it saves the file with ~ placed on the end of the file name for example myfilename would become myfilename~

When a file has been renamed with ~ being placed on the end of it, the file no longer has an association to it this will change the icon and which program will open it when you double click on it in a file manager (all you will get is the open with dialog)

You can then open myfilename~ with a text editor in this case with kwrite you would just click on open, navigate to the directory that contains myfilename~ then select myfilename~ and click on open

You could also (using dolphin) right click on the file and select open with from the context menu

Marvin wrote:i felt sure i had saved the file

Search your hard drive for the file you may have accidentally saved it in a different directory

hi joeoden,thanks but i think you sort of missed my point(s).i have already found the missing updates, they were in the "backup" files.the reason i wasn't "seeing" the latest file was because kwrite was opening the [original] text file and since the latest updates were only in the "backup" files then they looked as if they had been lost. doesn't that seem a rather dumb way of working to you?and yes, i got around the problem by using the open with dialog on the latest backup file and telling it to use kwirte in the future - so all looks fine.

however,

1)this all seems rather back to front to me. surely a backup file should be the older version not the latest.

2)i created a text file because i wanted a text file. i know what sort of file suits my purposes best. what right has some little utility program to over-rule what i want? it doesn't even make sense. once it's messed about and changed the type to backup then the same program can't even see the same file by default. surely that's just about as stupid as a utility can get. it's sort of like your car converting itself to run on diesel when you fill it up with petrol ("gasolene") or an aircraft deciding it's only going to operate underwater or the shuttle deciding that in future it's going to grow daisy's or a poltical party doing what it said it would do before it was elected.

3)if i continue to update this "note" file then i am going to end up with 200 billion older versions of it.doesn't that seem rather stupid to you?

4)is there no other text editor i could use by default instead? one that works a little more logically? one that doesn't create billions of versions of the same file. one that does what the human running the program wants and not what some ludite terrorist who clearly must get a commission for filling up hard drives with billions of old versions of files.ideally, one with tabs for multiple open files that remembers what files it had open when it was last closed- sorry, i was rather spoilt by NoteTab Lite in a previous existence.

i must admit, after a great deal of thought, i honestly can't think of even an M$ product that is as ludicrous as this!

My intuition is that when you went to open up your text file, you accidentally double-clicked on the backup file. Perhaps more than once. When you directly edited the backup file, kwrite did what it always does, and backed it up - by saving it with another tilda. If you just open the normal file every time, you'll never see the behavior you just described. And there are many other text editors - but they all save backups, as it's just general good practice.

I've been a kwrite user for about 5 years and have never seen this behavior happen without a user directly editing a backup by mistake.

hang on.in my original post i explained how, when i did click on the original text file my latest updates were not there -i thought that the most recent version of my file had been "lost".it was only when i later found the backup file that i discovered that it had a two days newer date stamp and it contained my most recent additions to the file.you seem to be saying that i must have updated the backup file by mistake and that's certainly not the case. i didn't know these backups existed; i had previously only opened the file by starting kwrite then using the entry in the most recent documents option.

cheers m8. couldn't find switch off backups before option, my old eyes aren't as good as they were.it looks as if once you update a backup file then it adds another tilda to the backup filename (just what you'd expect when you know how it works).still, all sorted, all backups now deleted, sun is shining, everything in the world is beautiful.thanks again.